I'm also finding it a difficult choice, especially with the additional cost/risk of postage and taxes, but they're trying out some new and innovative approaches with this release. [CD would have been my preferred format too though.]

There are more media formats to come, including digital download and maybe cassette tapes. These will be announced in the next weeks. The USB keys contain high quality WAV files, the digital download will be MP3s.

Hopefully most folks got the email flyer in their Inbox. If not please sign up to Joseph's mailing list via the official site.

"This is a living, breathing artifact of my own little journey through the bizarre contours of rock n roll," says Joseph Arthur, as he combines his success in the art world with his latest album, Days of Surrender. (...)

All the songs on the 'Days of Surrender' are written and performed by Joseph Arthur. The album was recorded at Rebel Country, Brooklyn New York and mastered by Gavin Lurssen at Lurssen Mastering.

I'm honoring itI'm celebrating itTaking me all those placesGiving me a little dressing room in parking lots outside of divesIn northern CanadaOr down southI remember the first time it rolled down sunset blvd.or drove over bumps in Time SquareI remember it kareening thru snow banks in VermontOr driving low and dark in New Orleans.I remember putting a bed in it and using it as my place to live for a time.It took me all over the country and beyondThru different bandsSolo and otherwiseThe Lonely Astronauts watched endless bad movies in the backDreaming big things about where rock n roll might take usNever knowing that we were already there.Already living the dream.This is a living breathing artifact of my own little journey thru the bizarre contours of rock n roll.I picked it up in DetroitIt seemed ridiculously fancy at the time.I felt like I was going to prom everytime I took it anywhereOnly I didn't have a date or a corsageEventually I got used to itAnd soon we were friends.Certain stories you only tell the wheel of the car you driveAlone on long lonely nights tracking from one middle of nowhere to the next.Delusion fuels all of us and maybe it was delusional but I always had the sense that I'm on a mission.This van for me embodied the spirit of that mission.What good is life if we can't celebrate it as we go?Most of us don't get retirement partiesOr award ceremonies to mark our ascension or declension into oblivionSo for types like us we need toInvent our own.Our own markers in time which signify the lookout points of our transformationAnd beyond that,We must embrace insanityAnd celebrate the will to color our lives out of normalcy.Celebrate freedomAnd the road which finally takes us off the roadOr beyond the roadOr from the real roadTo the painted roadThe road of black iceAnd deathTo the road of new dreamsAnd endless possibilitiesI celebrate this road I've taken by turning the vehicle into a Holy RollaThe music and the van are oneLet them be oneOnly one.Only oneAnd gone.

Joseph premiered 4 songs from 'Days Of Surrender' live at KEXP on 2015-06-02. This was the first time songs from the new album had been performed live!

Now you can listen to an exclusive debut of the studio version of "Maybe You" broadcast as part of The Weekly Feed finale show, courtesy of Kyle Meredith. [It's also followed by another exclusive - Algiers (Piano Version) by Greg Dulli.]

Many thanks to Kyle for having Joseph appear on The Weekly Feed so many times ("... the two artists who appeared on the show more than any other, Joseph Arthur and Ben Sollee,...") and hosting some great interviews - a great show series, it's been a blast!!

A couple of things Joe mentioned after the show in Portland about the release of Days of Surrender thatight be of interest - he was asked about vinyl (repeatedly, poor guy), he said they're working on it and pointed out he's releasing this himself (which I suspect translates into something like, Hey, that's kind of pricey to do, I'd like to do that but probably don't hold your breath). He did say that next it is coming out on cassette.

The cassette is out now, and it comes with a download, which is nice. I mean, the site says it's "the first ever formally released cassette by Joseph Arthur" like an achievement, but it's really a novelty item, isn't it. Anyway, I'm finally about to listen to the record and I think by now the sound of the previews has grown on me enough to be a bit excited about a new record.

It helps that Pledge of Allegiance really sounds like something from Junkyard Hearts; based on the preview videos, I was expecting fully stripped-down Nuclear Daydream or the even more DIY-sounding Lou/Boogie Christ Acoustic stuff.

I broke down and purchased the cassette, even though it is completely useless in the digital age, and unfortunately environmentally-unfriendly.

At any rate, I have been absolutely thrilled with the album itself. Others have commented on it being short but I haven't found that to be the case. Most of Joe's recent albums (excluding Boogie and Redemption City) have been very heavy on the acoustic ballads (here's looking at you, Graduation Ceremony). This album strikes a good balance, with few songs outstaying their welcome. Standouts so far are Break and Hold A Hand (which does sound like a cut from Junkyard Hearts).

I don't understand the benefit to Joe of not making this available as a download. Charge $10, and a hell of a lot more people would be able to listen to this thing.

Art? Seriously, since the "no CD, early listeners get/need to get an art print, okay there's a CD with The Van, The Van is a piece of art now, this record is the culmination of marrying the music to art" was so heavy, I'd guess the process of trying out other models of distribution is an art project in itself. Especially since the models of distribution are all meant to "give something special" to the fans with what's essentially a download record.

We had crowdfunding campaigns and pay-what-you-want models, now we have the "premium item" approach. I'm not sure if it's meant to be an exclusive thing for fans (since it's self-released and Real World didn't follow through on their announcement that they'd publish another Joe record this year I guess DoS turned out to not be a contender for the mainstream market anyway), which neglects the more regular fan who doesn't want a collector's item and s&h from Canada; or if Joe et al simply forgot to set this up properly and have an announcement, something like exclusive release dates for the collector's stuff and then a definitive date some months later for regular listeners so everyone can look forward to the record. Act 2 of Boogie Christ kind of got lost in the process as well, didn't it. But Joe was always more interested in producing records than promoting him, wasn't he?

Long story short, I can't imagine why the record's got an air of exclusivity right now, especially since its main attribute, as far as I can tell, isn't grandeur, spoken word approach, Lou Reed, intimacy, a special band situation or something extraordinary like that; it's brevity. It's the short record. Right now its character still reminds me most of the EP releases. Good, but not larger than life, and probably most memorable for fans, not for new listeners. Granted, larger than life is expensive to make. Which brings us back to "why not try to get all the money you can from the release".

But then the no-CD approach already denies a part of the income for the project. I somehow can't see many cassettes being sold at the merch table. Earning money definitely wasn't the biggest concern this time around, or maybe the 100 art print editions already help pay the bills and that's that.

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 3 guests

You cannot post new topics in this forumYou cannot reply to topics in this forumYou cannot edit your posts in this forumYou cannot delete your posts in this forumYou cannot post attachments in this forum